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Saturday, November 03, 2012

It is on days like this, where living in Florida is its own peculiar nightmare. The Herald first endorsed President Obama, now headlines on its front page a poll by a Republican pollster showing Romney up, above the margin of error.

In the meantime, Republicans who haven't voted might think about the margin of error in their own party. The GOP has been taken over by the crushing weight of special interest money. According to one report, $9 billion will be spent this election cycle on all political races, with 80 percent of that money coming from a host of coordinated, conservative Republican superPAC's, businesses, and Republican lobbying organizations like the Chamber of Commerce.

This tidal wave of money brooks no diversity of opinion, nuance, or policy difference. It has turned the United States into a support system for the extraordinarily wealthy whose main goal is to keep what they have during a time of unprecedented economic contraction, organized through massively manipulated media and message machinery.

I hope Florida turns Romney back. Were that to happen, it would deliver a message from the ground that it is time to fix what is wrong at the top. Click 'read more' for a recent piece by Timothy Egan that should resonate in a state that has more to lose than any other in the nation.

A catastrophic storm has no feelings, no fury, no compassion and certainly no political position. Hurricanes may sound like bridge partners at the Boca community center — Sandy, Irene and Katrina — until they land and become monsters. The mistake, perhaps, is trying to anthropomorphize them.

But that doesn’t mean that a fatal blow from Mother Nature will not alter the course of human nature. When the seas rose earlier this week, swamping the world’s greatest city and battering a helpless state, the turbulence of the elements washed away the sand castles of politics.

Climate change is to the Republican base what leprosy once was to healthy humans — untouchable and unmentionable. Their party is financed by people whose fortunes are dependent upon denying that humans have caused the earth’s weather patterns to change for the worse.

At the same time, Republicans have spent the last year trying to win an argument about the role of government as a helping hand. By now, most people know that Mitt Romney, in his base-pandering mode during the primaries, made the federal disaster agency FEMA sound like a costly nuisance, better off orphaned to the states or the private sector.

His party can get away with fact-denial — in global warming’s case — and win cable-television arguments about FEMA, so long as something like a major news event, e.g., reality, does not shatter the picture. That’s where the storm upset a somewhat predictable race.

Did global warming cause Sandy to be so massive, so destructive, so unfathomable? There’s no consensus on this specific storm. But virtually every reputable atmospheric scientist who is not tied by money to an oil or coal company says that this week’s storm is a picture of what’s to come, if not already here. Many of the world’s premier cities, New York foremost among them, are at the mercy of the rising seas that accompany a hotter earth. Record low levels of sea ice in the Arctic and record warm temperatures in the Atlantic were likely part of the brew that contributed to Sandy’s very high storm surge.

“There has been a series of extreme weather incidents,” said New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday, stating the obvious. “This is not a political statement. This is a factual statement. Anyone who says there is not a dramatic change in weather patterns I think is denying reality.”

Gov. Andrew Cuomo visited Breezy Point in Queens, N. Y., after a fire incinerated over a hundred homes when Hurricane Sandy passed through the northeast.
President Obama has been silent on this issue of great import to his children, Sasha and Malia, and their children. He is afraid of those pockets of coal-mining, climate-change-denying voters in Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio. After the election, I suspect, he will be more vocal. A profile in courage he is not, but at least his party has some smart advocates for treating the patient before the meteorological malady kills it.

The other cherished idea of Republicans that was thrown to Sandy’s winds is the notion that people don’t need government in times of domestic trauma. Let the soup-can brigades, the church volunteers and the Red Cross handle it. When the full bill for New Jersey’s recovery comes due, no single state or private entity in the land will able to come close to paying for it. And that forces a basic question: do the other states, bound to the union of a single country, have a responsibility to pay for one that has been mortally wounded?

Ayn Rand is having her “Mad Men” revivalist moment in the Republican Party, led by social Darwinists like Paul Ryan. These people genuinely do believe that life is a battle between achievers and moochers, and that luck, good or bad, has little to do with it. Compassion is for wussies, and tax dollars from those at the top should not be used to help those who are struggling.

Of late, we’ve seen the “hate of all nature,” as one old-timer called the Dust Bowl, visit nearly every part of the United States. Texas was on fire for much of a year while its governor, Rick Perry, denied climate change and signed an official proclamation calling for a day of prayer for rain. The Midwest saw the worst drought in 70 years. Entire subdivisions in the Rockies were wiped out by wildfire.

In these precincts of extreme trauma, government haters became government lovers. In the reddest of Western counties after a big fire, in which many a home was saved by many a yellow-shirted hero, you always see these banners thanking the government for sending in rescuers with axes and shovels.

But over time, and with dismal repetition, will extreme natural disasters become like school shootings, with little thought given to the larger significance? Perhaps not yet. After the 1989 earthquake briefly halted the World Series, T-shirts soon appeared with these words: “Nature Bats Last.” In the election of 2012, it looks like nature votes last.

22 comments:

Anonymous
said...

One measure of consolation on today's Herald coverage is that noone reads the Herald or at least considers it credible in its coverage of this election- precisely because of bs like this story. Instead, the Herald should be all over the story of the long lines and disenfrachisement of Miami voters -- the working poor, minority, elderly who can't stand in line in the hot sun for 3,4 hours to vote. And how we got no help from our own Mayors Gimenez or Regalado to ask Gov Scott to extend early voting to Sunday. Shame on all of them.

Volunteers needed now thru election day to get out the vote for the president. Make calls from home, go to the polls, canvass door to door, take people to the polls. The only poll that counts is on election day.

So who in the Herald is trying to throw this election for Romney? It's not just Caputo- the day before the Herald ran a story speculating the unemployment rate was going to go back up beyond 8 percent. It didn't. But that was the damaging headline.

We need entertainment, food and water at the polls today. Calling all progressive singers, dancers, drummers - come on down to keep the people happy. Let's lead in some singing- this is a civil rights issue- bring back the songs that led is through. We will prevail.

Gimleteye you give it away. You are connected to the Dem Party and you know the vote is not there for Barry as it was in 2008 so you have tried in numerous posts to dissuade Republican voters.Get your dem friends out to vote for your guy. Independents have broken for Romney in double digits, but you already knew that and thus the charade.

Republican mayor Gimenez should stand up for his republic Cuban constituents who are being disenfranchised by long lines and ask for Sunday voting extension. If abuelitas and extended family can't vote Romney will lose! Help mr Gimenez- the future of the country is at stake!

"It (money) has turned the United States into a support system for the extraordinarily wealthy whose main goal is to keep what they have during a time of unprecedented economic contraction, organized through massively manipulated media and message machinery."

It has always been thus since the founding of the colonies as chartered companies of the British, Dutch and French monarchies. Or as Ornette Coleman has said, "What used to be never was."

Why do we perpetuate this myth? It only serves to maintain this false idea that it is one party is responsible for plantetary pollution and the persecution of the poor (not true) while the other party is responsible for state totalitarianism and persecution of the 'free' (not true either). Give me a break. The last time I looked the Democratic Party held as much sway over post WWII U.S. policies that have produced, until very recently, the highest energy consumption and pollution levels per capita in the world. And there is that little matter of U.S. imperialism. Remember something call Vietnam? Who was it who controlled the White House and Congress? The whole shithouse is stinking corrupt, and has been from the start.

I don't want Romney to win any more than you do. But this continued comic-book approach to social analysis is not helping anyone.

Someone recently asked me if I've decided who to vote for - Obama or Stein. My response: "I'm voting for the devil, because Jesus isn't in the game."

Nate Silver's Five Thirty Eight analysis from Friday should back you away from the cliff a bit. 19 state polls from the swing states out on Friday and the President showing leads in all of them but one -- this one in Florida. Even right leaning Rasmussen (which overestimates to Romney by 2-3 points) is starting to show Obama leads or ties in these states. According to the analysis, unless all the polls are highly biased against Romney, it looks like the Presidnet wil be re-elected. His statistical model accounts for this and indicates that thereis only a 16 percent chance of said bias, thus a 16% chance of Romney winning the electoral college vote.

Just trying to save the country from the enormous aberration in the gene pool. For some reason, the Obama supporters are impaired. Someone must save them! Otherwise we'll run out of people to tax and pay for their support. Or we'll have no military when the soldiers leave when they realize their CIC is sacrificing them to Allah.

The one behind the "Mitt endorsement" is that GREAT HIALEAH CUBAN, Aminda Marques, the newspaper's Executive Editor who is a loyal Jeb Bush follower and friend. It's okay, though, we're gonna beat the hell out of the Republican scumbags, in this election... and then, we'll kick Rick Scott's behind out of office. Let's not forget, either, that he was elected thanks to the efforts of "putzes" like Michael Putney, who is also in love with Marco Rubio! And don't tell me that I can't criticize the Cubans because I happen to be Cuban, as well!

Gimlete - your recent posts about the presidential race have made me giggle and probably not the way you'd want them to. The house isn't going to change and the senate will probably remain the same. quite frankly it doesn't matter who wins the presidency, who endorses who, who spins what, etc. it will be two more years of the same old, same old unless Reid lets a younger Dem member take over, which he won't do.

I look forward to to more years of fillibusters, executive orders & czars (if obama wins) or in the alternative, the house will work with romney but reid won't.

The beat goes on no matter how much we all huff and puff. I'm just wondering what all these news outlets are going to do without the revenue from ALL of the campaigns all over the place. I'd venture about 50% will be in financial trouble very soon as they were before they became flush with cash.

Friday’s polling should make it easy to discern why Mr. Obama has the Electoral College advantage. There were 22 polls of swing states published Friday. Of these, Mr. Obama led in 19 polls, and two showed a tie. Mitt Romney led in just one of the surveys, a Mason-Dixon poll of Florida.

Quotes hall of fame - worth another look:

Jonathon Dunlop of Australia about the Miami Airport:"This is the most disorganized shambles of an airport that exists on this earth.''April 01, 2007 Eye on Miami Comment on Post__________________________________On "Colony Collapse Disorder":Anonymous said...I say lets wait till the last tree is going to be cut down, the last bit of oil used, the last lowland coastal areas flooded before we make any rash decisions that might effect the economy.April 21, 2007 Eye on Miami Comment_________________________________On Bee “Colony Collapse Disorder” being blamed on cell phones:Anonymous said...Hmmm. What are bees doing with cell phones, anyhow?April 20, 2007 Eye on Miami Comment_________________________________On South Florida Water Supply:Ron Littlepage said...Unfortunately, we know who would win when it comes to allowing development to run amok and it's not the wildlife.April 20, 2007 Eye on Miami Comment Post_________________________________Lesley Blackner said:In Florida, the sad reality is that government exists to serve the development machine, not the citizenry. That's why it's proper to say that in Florida we have government of the developer, by the developer and for the developer.April 22, 2007 Eye on Miami Post_________________________________On City of Miami and Miami Dade County giving $1,000,000 each to Jorge Perez’s Related Group (The Group's 2005 revenues were $3.25 billion.):"It makes as much sense as me donating half my paycheck to Warren Buffett.”May 6, 2007 Miami Herald Columnist Ana Menendez_________________________________On the FCAT Test:"'Florida is a serial mis-user of test scores.''Bob Schaeffer, director for Massachusetts-based FairTest.May 25, 2007 Miami Herald_________________________________Clifford Schulman (Greenberg Traurig Lobbyist):"This is the first time in 33 years that any one has accused me of fraud." June 28, 2007 Miami HeraldI say: hmm.__________________________________Max Rameau, Homeless Activist:"I respect Ron Book for his work with the Homeless Trust, but the Liberty City community and others have given broad support to this idea. I don't know that a big-time millionaire lobbyist can tell us what is best for Liberty City and the black community.'' July 28, 2007 Miami Herald__________________________________"After years of mismanagement under a board of political appointees and neighborhood activists, Miami-Dade County administrators have proposed a new way to run the troubled empowerment zone program. The plan: Bring in new political appointees and neighborhood activists."November 6, 2007 Miami Herald: Reporter Scott Hiaasen______________________________________"Saying "Greater Everglades" and "Northern Everglades" is not saying Everglades -- other places are deserving of being protected too, but there is only one Everglades. The main thing is to keep the 'Main Thing' the main thing -- which, lately, has not been the main thing." Bob Mooney - on Listserve "Everglades Commons"________________________________________"Does anyone in their right mind believe that Florida could conduct postal balloting without a major screw-up or scandal? Heavens, no! The whole country is keenly aware that our state is a sump hole of incompetence and corruption."Carl Hiaasen - March 16, 2008 Miami Herald_______________________________________On the Charter Review: "Commissioners want us to vote on their own pet changes, ideas the review team explicitly rejected. And, they're throwing their blatantly self-serving ballot questions at us at the same time. What a slap in the face to the charter review team — and to all of us!" Michael Lewis of Miami Today - April 10, 2008______________________________________On the Miami Dade County Commission:''Unfortunately, this is a commission that would build a cyanide factory next to a playground if you hired the right 12 lobbyists,'' Miami Lakes Councilman Michael Pizzi - May 14, 2008______________________________________"The days where we’re just building sprawl forever, those days are over. I think that Republicans, Democrats, everybody recognizes that that’s not a smart way to build communities." President Barack Obama in Fort Meyers - February 10, 2009______________________________________"So."Dick Cheney's response when told that two thirds of Americans did not support the war in Iraq. - Time Magazine 2008______________________________________"It seems like a bad idea can always find a home in the Florida Legislature." - Howard Simon - Executive Director of Florida ACLU - March 24, 2010

______________________________________Complete this sentence: South Florida really needs a..."Regional plan for controlled growth (before it becomes a concrete jungle similar to Houston), and a completely new set of elected officials that make decisions based on what's good for the future of South Florida instead of what's good for their wallets. - Jack McCabe, Real Estate expert who predicted the housing boom's end. - August 29, 2011 Miami Herald